In the art of fuel cells and batteries, there is an ongoing search for new and improved hydrogen-fueled power-generating cells and/or power-storing batteries suitable for powering electrical vehicles and such that the use of vehicles that are powered by hydrocarbon fuels can be advantageously phased out.
Recent and promising developments in the prior art has been the development of improved hydrogen-absorbing metal alloy structures for establishing the electrodes in nickel-metal hydride hydrogen storage electrochemical cells. The most recent and promising of those alloy structures are porous structures established by reducing previously established alloys into fine powdered form and sintering the powdered metal alloys to establish structurally stable integrated porous metal structures that have as much surface area and as many active sights that each weight unit of the metal alloy can present when worked upon in its metallic state.
To the best of my knowledge and belief, the minimum mean or average pore size in those sintered powdered metal alloys provided by the prior for establishing the electrodes of hydrogen hydride batteries or the like is greater than one micron. A porous metal alloy hydride electrode structure with a mean pore size of one micron and presenting enough effective surface area and active sights to serve practical needs results in an electrode structure that is quite heavy and large and structure that includes such a great amount of costly metals that its size, weight and/or cost are highly likely to be excessive for use in the establishment of batteries for most uses.
In accordance with the above, prior to my invention, there existed a yet-to-be-satisfied need to notably decrease the pore size and thereby increase the surface area and active sights for each weight unit of porous metal alloy used to establish the electrodes in hydrogen hydride batteries and to thereby notably decrease the size, weight and amount of costly metals required to establish effective and efficient electrode structures for use in such batteries.